Creating a bee-friendly garden
Parts of a bee
The buzzing of bees welcomes the beginning of warmer days and lighter nights. You’ve no doubt heard these flying insects bumbling around your garden during the spring and summer months, but what exactly do they look like? Well, let’s have a closer look…
- Antenna: These allow bees to smell food and help them measure how fast they are flying.
- Forewing and hindwing: They have four wings – one pair of large wings at the front and one pair of smaller wings at the back.
- Legs: Bees have six hairy legs, two at the front of their body, two in the middle, and two at the back.
- Stinger: If bees feel threatened, they will sting to protect themselves or their nest. A honeybee’s stinger is barbed but a bumblebee’s is not.
Plant some bee-friendly flowers!
From cute bumblebees to hard-working honeybees, there are so many reasons why these fuzzy friends are important to our ecosystem
Bees are vital to the survival of many plants and to the food we eat. They are one of the most efficient pollinators in the world, pollinating more than 90% of our wild plants. Honeybees also create honey!
1 in every 3 bites of food we take is thanks to the work of bees. Without them, some of our favourite foods would disappear entirely. We would find it difficult to find fruits and vegetables like strawberries, apples, carrots and blueberries, and honey would become a thing of the past!
A plea on bee-half of bees…
Bees need our help! The number of bees in the wild is dropping due to habitat loss, harmful chemicals and climate change – as the planet gets warmer, plants bloom earlier and get missed by pollinating bees. For this reason, it’s more important than ever to look after our buzzy buddies. We can all do our bit by planting some bee-friendly flowers and spreading the word!
Tips to creating a bee-friendly garden:
A wonderful way to help buzzing bees is by creating a sanctuary for them in your garden, and spring is the perfect time to give it a go! Creating a bee-friendly garden is easy to do and doesn’t take a lot of work. Here’s some top tips to get you started:
Plant flowers
Bees feed on nectar and pollen from flowers. Remember that flowers bloom at different times of year, so be sure to plant a wide variety. Bees can also see colour – their favourites are purple, blue and yellow!
Welcome weeds
Weeds and wildflowers are important sources of food and shelter for bees. It’s a good idea to leave flowering weeds like dandelions and white clovers in your garden to give bees nectar during early spring
Build a bee-n-bee
Create a bee hotel or a “bee-n-bee” with bamboo canes. You can also fill an empty tin with pieces of cane. Hang it in a sunny spot and it will attract all kinds of bees in search of a nest site
Create a bee pond
Bees can’t swim and don’t like getting their wings wet but they do need water. Leave a shallow dish of water filled with stones or marbles out for them to drink from
Avoid pesticides
Chemicals called pesticides are used in gardens to kill unwanted insects that are damaging plants; but they kill bees too! Try not to add these chemicals to your plants